What is a Pet Microchip?

Learn about dog & cat microchips in Australia.

A microchip is simply a type of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) that due to its size is suitable to assist in the identification of companion animals, mainly cats and dogs but can also be used for many other types of animals such as horses, cattle, birds and goats.

In most cases the microchip is implanted just under the skin between the shoulder blades at the back of your pet’s neck.

A microchips main purpose is to store little amounts of information which is easily transmitted when scanned by a microchip reader.

The stored information is a sequence of numbers which is then matched with records stored on an external data source (like a national pet registry) to identify the pet owner.

Since there are numerous types of microchips being produced, standards have been put in place to control the way the data is stored on the microchip and the frequency at which it is read by a scanning device.

Introducing standards that cover the supply of microchips worldwide will ensure microchip data is not replicated and remains unique while also making sure data can easily be read by a variety of microchip scanners available on the market.

These standards are set by the International Organization of Standardization. The standard that are related to the manufacturing of microchips is ISO 11784 and ISO 11785.

ISO 11784 specifies the structure of the identification code, how data should be formatted and the need to make sure data is unique.

ISO 11785 specifies how a transponder is activated and how the stored information is transferred to a transceiver. This ensures data can easily be read by specifying the frequency a microchip scanner should operate at to receive information stored on the microchip.

The Australian standards for microchipping are based on both ISO 11784 and ISO 11785.

ISO FDX-B Microchips Explained

In Australia implanters are required to implant only ISO FDX-B microchips. This ensures lost animals can easily be identified when scanned.

As the name suggests ISO FDX-B microchips are manufactured to the specifications set by ISO 11784 and ISO 11785.